Top tips
Don't just manage what you can measure,
Measure what you want to manage
You have probably heard this phrase, but what does
it mean?
It means having the 15-20 measures that really make
the difference, not the 70 to 100 that you are currently measuring.
Let us take project management as an example. Put
10 or 20 project managers in a room and ask, “How can we
measure successful projects?” (This actually works just
as well with one project manager). Within 10 minutes you will
have three flipcharts full of measures: Probably 50-60 different
ones. All are valid. All are potential measures of a project’s
success. People are very creative.
The next question is, “Which is most important?”
“Which should we use?”. At this point the
arguments start. “I prefer this”, “we need this
as well”, “This is better” etc etc... You can
leave them for the whole day arguing about this. No one will win.
They won’t agree. They will probably, like most organisations,
end up justifying having all of them.
The problem is that they are falling into the classic trap. They
know they need to measure, so they are listing all the things
that they can measure. And they probably are measuring them. Like
me, you probably see management reports with 100-200 measures
in them. (For more details see our
case studies)
So, do they communicate them all to the staff? Which are
actually important? Not all 50, 75, 100, I am sure.
What about the “So what?" test? So. what am I looking
for and what will I do about it, if it changes?”
What is the cause of the problem?
They have started in the wrong place. They are also pre-judging
what they can measure.
Now imagine you banned discussion of measures. Now you simply
ask, "What is it you are trying to achieve?" "What
is important ?" Do this without prejudging whether you can
measure it or not.
Often, at this point there is usually a discussion about not
trying to achieve things you cannot measure. Fine, but again
that pre-judges things. You have to decide whether you can
measure something before you suggest it.
Now, my experience is that when I work with clients, between
40-60% of the measures we come up with were not even on the list
at the start. They are useful measures and tell whether the strategy
is happening, but not standard measures.
I did this once with a City Council. Despite having 140 customer
survey measures, only half the 8 objectives in the customer perspective
that they wanted to measure were actually being collected. As
a result, they re-cast their customer survey.
In a large retailer, of the 25 measures on the top level scorecard,
only 10 came from existing measures. In an insurance company,
the figures were similar.
Now, they were measuring what they needed to manage and not measuring
all those things that were easy to measure, just because they
could.
So, don't just manage what you can measure,
measure what you want to manage
Want to cut your measures down to size, then talk
with us
|
